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May 11, 2017

May Beautiful People Prompt

Hey Guys!

Now that May is in full swing, I wanted
to finally participate in Beautiful People! If you don’t know what Beautiful
People is, it is a blog meme for writers to answer questions about their
characters on their blogs hosted by Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further Up and
Further In.

I didn’t discover this until
this past February, but I just didn’t get around to participating in it until
this month.😀

If you would like to take part in
Beautiful People yourself, go to Cait or Sky’s blog, answer the questions on
your own blog, link back to Cait or Sky, and leave your link on their blogs.

In honor of Mother’s Day, this month’s
theme is the Parental Edition, where you answer questions about the
relationship between your character and their parents/parental figure. For this
Beautiful People, I decided to use the main character from one of the many
projects I’m currently working on, fourteen-year-old Evalyn Hollman.

1.Overall, how good is
their relationship with their parents?

Her relationship with
both her parents were great until they died in a car crash recently. She was
very close to both of them in different ways so she was more than devastated
when she lost them.

2.Do they know both of
their biological parents? If not, how do they cope with this loss/absence and
how has affected their life?

She did know them,
and since they died she has not been coping well at all. She has had to move to
another country to live with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousin, and the stress of
that on top of normal grief and her anxiety that she has struggled with her
whole life has caused her to have gigantic panic attacks multiple times a day.

3.How did their parents
meet?

Evalyn’s mom grew up
in Florida where they raised Evalyn, but her Dad grew up out of state, so they
did not meet until college. I haven’t figured out more of a backstory to this
part yet.😳

4.How would they feel
if they were told “You’re turning out just like your parent(s)?”

At first it would
hurt because she doesn’t like to think about her parents at all because she can’t
accept that they’re gone, but in normal circumstances she would take it as a
compliment; especially if she was being compared to her mom. Her mom in her
eyes was the most beautiful person inside and out. She was loving,
compassionate, generous, faithful, kind, and strong. Evalyn always imagined
striving to be like her when she was little.

5.What were your
character’s parents doing when they were your character’s age?

Evalyn’s mom would be
going to high school in Winter Park and I imagine her having a large group of
close friends and being pretty popular because she was so nice. Not because she
had cool clothes or anything. Her dad would be in high school wherever he grew
up. I haven’t figured out where that is yet.😞 I think he would be more quiet and
reserved and only have one or two friends like Evalyn.

6.Is there something
they adamantly disagree on?

The only thing I can
think of is most teenagers get in trouble for doing things like staying out too
late and doing things with friends without checking in with their parents, and
Evalyn would never go to parties or
anything like that, especially late at night. She would rather be in her room
all day on her laptop or reading all the books she can get her hands on. Her parents
were actually a little frustrated and concerned that she spent too much time inside and never
socialized.

7.What did the parents
find hardest about raising your character?

She really was not
rebellious or a problem child at all. Really the only thing that was difficult
about raising her was trying to get her to go out more and make friends and
build up her self-esteem and confidence and help her manage her severe anxiety
that she was born with. Now that they’re gone her anxiety has spiraled down out
of control.

8.What’s their most
vivid memory with their parents?

Probably going to Disney
World with them and some other family friends every chance they got since she
was little. She grew up in Orlando so naturally they would have passes. Pretty
much her whole life revolved around Disney and she had such good memories there.
Sadly, now they are all tainted because she was ripped far away from all of
that and now they are a thing of the past.

9.What was your
character like as a baby or toddler?

Very shy and anxious
like she is now, but she was a lot happier and felt safer then than she does
now.

10.
Why and how did the parents choose your character’s name?

I looked up online
what “Evelyn” means since I just decided to spell it differently, and I found
one source said Evelyn is derived from and Old French last name that means
hazelnut, so I thought maybe they could have some French in their heritage so
that might be a reason why they chose it. Plus, Evalyn’s hair is brown so I
liked the hazelnut meaning.

I found another
source that said Evelyn meant “wished for a child” and Evalyn is an only child
and her parents were told they couldn’t have more children after she was born,
so they felt blessed that God at least gave her to them since they wanted kids
but they weren’t sure they would be able to handle more than one anyway.

My favorite meaning I
found of Evelyn though, is that it is basically a variant of Eve, like in the
Bible, so it means life. I thought that it was a good use of irony since her
life has been full of death and tragedy lately. She would have to learn to
literally live up to her name to
overcome all her pain.

So that’s it for my very first Beautiful
People Post! 😊 I hope you all have a great Mother’s Day!💖